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Resumo

This article reviews and evaluates the evolutionary schema for the development of human social organization presented in Service’s recently published Primitive Social Organization: An Evolutionary Perspective. The authors find Service’s evolutionary stages—band, tribe, chiefdom, and state—to be heuristically useful, but they argue that his characterization of band organization is inadequate and misleading. They suggest that Service’s evolutionary approach is overly simplistic and fails to account for the diversity of human social organization. Specifically, they criticize Service’s reliance on a single, unilinear evolutionary trajectory and his neglect of the role of ecological factors in shaping social organization. Hallowell and Service engage in a point-by-point discussion of the various criticisms, offering clarifications and defenses of their respective positions. The exchange highlights the ongoing debate within anthropology regarding the application of evolutionary theory to the study of human societies.

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